sweet as cherry wine
by mirajens
Summary: baby, who do you love when you don't have a choice? (aka mirajane, laxus, erza, and jellal are hot ass messes)


**note** : Is this Miraza? Miraxus? Jerza? Idk what the fuck this is supposed to be except four horrible people being horrible, feeding my angst thirst. I've wanted to write this since I read the last chapter, kind of like my desired version of events after the Alvarez war. But eh feel free to employ freedom of imagination or whatnot.

We had an earthquake here and it fucked internet, data and cell so I had almost 2 weeks to project Erza obsession here.

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 **sweet as cherry wine**

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 _ **Mirajane**_

Erza comes to me when her life is in shambles.

Perhaps it's leftover habit from when we were young and there was nothing for childhood trauma and teenage plight except for temporary warmth in each other's arms. I used to not mind it so much. I'd thought it was just a necessity. Over time, it nurtured my fascination into something much more gripping. I see it in other people, how they see red hair and go glossy-eyed. Of course, I am different. I don't think about how she doesn't really have much of a selection. Or rather, a pleasant selection. Aside from me, there are men who are more muscle than brain, used to satisfy passing lust.

I want to believe that Erza likes me best.

Often I find myself wishing misery on her. When the nights are lonely, my imagination is most vivid. I dream of men breaking Erza so she will seek out relief in me. I think of them grabbing her beautiful scarlet hair and telling her cruel things so when they leave her with a broken spirit, I will be there and she will love me. She will climb into bed with me and shed tears over all that hurts. She will touch me and kiss me and try to find on my skin and flesh what those men can't give her. I will be everything she needs.

Erza Scarlet will love me that night. She will love me until she finds someone else to love and I will spiral back into depraved thought, wishing wickedness on her until it comes true and she finds her way back to me again.

When Erza weeps in my arms, I inspect myself for remorse for wanting that unkindness on her, or even _depending_ on the inevitability of it. Yet, I find none. I tell myself, _Erza is where she belongs._ It's regrettable that she has to suffer to get here, but the end is all the same. I have to be content with that. I have to accept the certainty of such; even if she cries so hard my pillows are damp until the next evening.

I imagine this is how thieves don't think about which poor creature they're stealing from just so the bills get paid. When I see Erza cry, my relief is greater than my pity.

She looks up to me, her arms circled around my stomach, her tears wet on my chest. "Mira," she says, hoarse and pitiful. "You're good to me. You never hurt me. I love you."

I want to tell her yes, of course, I'm the only one who loves you, Erza. I'll wait until your flights of fancy expire and come crawling back like a kicked dog that never learns. Erza will never know that in my mind, it's dark for her and I intend to be the only light.

Instead of answering, I kiss the crown of her head and stroke the red silk of her hair, thinking she might love me, but she loves a lot of people, too. We're not nice people, yet that only affirms my belief that we belong to each other.

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 _ **Laxus**_

I know a pattern when I see one.

I know that when Erza leaves, Mira is at her most vulnerable. It's not something I can stomach most days. Mirajane, that pretty little thing, comes to my door with bloodshot eyes that look more livid than sad. Even when I feel badly for her, I want to close the door on her. Because every time I let her in, we end up fucking and it makes me feel crude.

I know I'm being used when I see it.

Mira asks if she can come in and I let her. She knows her way to the cabinet that houses liquor that have been there since before I was born, collected by my grandfather's father, passed down to mine, then all left to me when my family ceased to consist of gravestones. Mira shows me a bottle that I don't think she knows how to drink and asks me if we can help ourselves. She looks like a girl who's trying to be more mature than she is. I almost tell her this, and this isn't the first almost. This game she plays with Erza is foolish and long-running; something children do when they can find nothing more meaningful in their lives. And it's funny, isn't it, how I'm playing right into it? Like Mira, don't I wait for the inevitable, too, and benefit a cheap, meaningless fuck out of it?

I hold my tongue. I'm not sure I even want to deal with Mira when she gets even more worked up by me saying so.

I tell her to bring it to the living room and I go make sandwiches. The whole thing is kind of funny, objectively. My palms are damp while I build bread, ham and cheese. I know we won't eat it same as I know that she'll only wait the polite ten minutes before insinuating what she really came here for. Something nauseating roils in my gut and I imagine its dread. For what? Guilt for taking advantage of a confused girl? Unease at the notion that I am equally being taken advantage of and that when the lust passes, I'll be left with debasing sentiments?

I join her and give her half a sandwich, anyway.

"I take it Erza left again? Jellal's back in town. Must be why." I don't say this to rile Mirajane up. I just don't know what else to share with her these days. It's been so long since we had anything substantial between us. Things haven't been the same since Lisanna died.

Gramps always said I had a stupid mouth. That I didn't think of the shit I said or about the people I upset. I guess he was right because Mirajane looks mad. She looks mad before she looks cold and then she's kissing me. It's never been the sweet kind. Mira kisses like I am responsible for every shitty thing that's ever happened to her. Sometimes, she kisses so hard she leaves blood in my mouth. Maybe I like it because she's still here, isn't she? I keep opening the damn door to her.

She's already crawled onto my lap, foregoing the polite ten minutes that has been customary up until this night. I push her off so she looks twice as pissed as she is, and grab at the whisky she opened but didn't touch. There aren't any glasses so I drink right from the bottle, as if this scenario can afford to look any more gauche than it already does. It burns down my throat but settles warmly into my stomach, enough for me to face Mira again, though nothing leaves me prepared for the look on her face.

I get on top of her and kiss her so I don't have to look at her anymore. Falling back into old habits feels natural when I don't see how life has hollowed out her eyes. It's easy now that I convinced myself enough that she wants this more than I do, and she wouldn't be here if she didn't need this so much. We're all creatures of comfort. Maybe hers is cathartic sex with me, and mine is just _her_ in particular.

I don't even dare say it. I don't even dare think it. That I love Mirajane, who only ever violently obsesses over Erza Scarlet.

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 _ **Jellal**_

Maybe I am sick.

Something swims in my blood and it makes me tireless and agitated. I can't settle down. There is always something to chase, some ghost to put to rest, an evil to be eliminated, a war to end. Or maybe I am just making excuses. Maybe I'm terrified of what planting roots will mean for me.

I don't belong in Magnolia. I'm not built to bask in open sunlight or accept what life has to offer. I try to visualize being surrounded by friendly people but all I can see is how disappointed they will be when they find nothing good in me; everything in here is damaged, after all. I belong in the shadows where my only companions are wretch like me. After years of madness, I don't know how to embrace normal. It will never have me, or I it.

I imagine life with Erza and it makes my ulcer boil, for how can I subject her to spending her days loving a wild thing? One would think repugnance of self gets tedious after puberty but I know how dangerous I am. How pathetic, how deranged, how obscure. Sometimes I feel like the only good I've done was staying away, keeping her safe on a pedestal.

But when she comes to me, I cannot stop her. I can make meteors bend to my will but I'm too weak to turn a girl away.

 _Just one more time,_ I promise myself. Maybe I say it out loud because Erza tightens her hold on me and I let her.

It's not like I'm not already suffocated by her.

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 _ **Erza**_

I feel all sensation boil down to a single instinct when Laxus tells me Jellal is in town. Laxus is a big man, but he looks like he's trying to fold into himself, back against the bar, eyes shifting, sotto voce, giving me the location of a safe house Master Makarov keeps just west of the woods. His surreptitious nature eludes me; my mind is too busy figuring out the most efficient route to that cottage by the dead oaks.

I am a noisy traveler. My armor creaks and my booted feet stomp, yet all I can hear is the pounding of my pulse against my eardrums like a war beat preluding fateful demise. The cottage is easy enough to find. The thin trail of smoke coming out of the chimney makes my heart beat faster. He's here. I know he is.

I knock on the door before cowardice eats me alive. I don't know why it stuns me when the door opens and I see his face, the dark marks on his face, the shock of his hair, the disappointment in his eyes. He's here and my chest decompresses. What did I expect? Not this, surely. It always feels too good to be true when I catch up to him.

I don't know what to say. It's been so long and this time is entirely different from every other time fate has bought him back to me. There are no more wars, no more great monsters, no more excuses between us. And what can I tell him? _Won't you stay? I've been trying to fill the hole you left behind but nothing fits quite right. I'm already begging. I'd throw everything away for you._

He already knows that. I've already said it too many times to mean anything now. Instead of forcing my mind to find something to say, I step into the small house. Jellal never turns me away but I imagine it's just a small mercy before he disappears.

I wrap my arms around him and it's a peaceful start to what will be a storm.

Much later, when we're undressed, lounging on a hard pallet, with my hands roaming as if to memorize the shape of him in the dark, I try not to think about how sunrise will take him away yet again.


End file.
